Deer Camp Rituals

[BuckslayerBob]

It's getting close, guys. Only 16 days left! Post some of your deer camp rituals or what you do to get ready for deer camp. I'm heading up this weekend to check out stands, load up on firewood, fill the propane tank for the gas stove, do any last minute shack repairs/improvements and try to get in some grouse hunting on the side. I finally got my new Honda Foreman a couple weeks ago and can't wait to get out on the trails with my very own machine. I still have to make a trip to GM to pick up the deer hunting essentials, sight in my gun, and go through my gear and make sure everything is ready to go.

What are some of the rituals you guys will be partaking in as we get closer to deer camp?

If someone has recently made a thread like this, I apologize. I haven't got to dig through all the threads much yet.

[fivebucks]

B.S.Bob,

Our deer camp is pretty similar. We have a 38' trailer with "additions". We now have more square footage in additions than the original trailer. We've even added a 2nd trailer off the end for the kids. I will see that trailer tomorrow night.

[mudman]

AWESOME TOPIC!!

We go up friday @ noon and play in the cribbage tourney in town, have some beverages, and head home. hunt the next day some of the "elders" come in for a big breakfast others stay the day. then eat a nice big potroast at night.

Those that tag deer usuall tip more back and go out the next day at their convience, others stick to it. Sunday is football and beverage day at the local watering hole!

monday, packup go home after the night hunt!

[jbdragon]

About half our group usually heads out around 9AM on Friday. We make a slow 4-5 hour trek nort and maybe stop for lunch somewhere. Get to camp and start setting up (unpacking, organizing supplies, loading firewood, getting water, clearing any snow). Once camp is straight we will have some dinner, drink a few beers and play cards awaiting everyones arrival. Then we all lay in bed awake all night waiting for the watch alarms to go off!!

[bigbucks]

My brother's coming up this weekend. We'll shoot our shotguns & rifles (we use those towards second weekend further North), maybe even shoot the ml. We're also hoping to mow down shooting lanes by a few stands if we can get across a creek. We definitely will make some minor repairs & do any last minute trimming around our gun stands.

As far as plans for the actual opener I always take off the last day or two before season to bow hunt hard, usually most of that's not done where we gun hunt. My brother-in-law's coming for those days to do that as well, so it's like deer hunting weekend starts a couple days earlier. The blaze orange will get tossed out on the woodpile about Tuesday or Wednesday until that Friday to get freshened up a bit. I already made my trip to Fleet Farm to buy slugs, handwarmers, & toe warmers. Bought a new blaze orange camo hat with ear flaps...

I hunt right around home & most of our party lives close by, so we don't have a deer camp to setup or a bunch of packing to do. My brother & brother-in-law & their families come up from the metro. We just make sure there's extra gun cases, boots, & blaze orange clothes in the truck. Sometimes when you fall through the ice in the swamp or don't quite make that jump over the creek, those extra clothes come in really handy.

[EXTREME]

My deer camp is my home, but this is what goes on. Friday I get off at noon and meet up with my buddy. We discuss hunting while driving around looking at the mass of orange on the county roads. Then we meander over to the tavern and talk about the upcoming hunt over a few beers. End up getting home and eating too much and trying to sleep. Nothing better than fresh air to cure a hangover and also to go to the bathroom in when you ate too much the night before It's tradition, and likely will not be broken!

[Perch Jerker]

We usually stink the place to high heaven. The old farts not only smell nasty but they don't want to open a few windows to air the place out. You can almost see a haze from the 15 male methane machines confined in tight quarters. The EPA would condem the place if they ever tested the air!

Firearms deer hunting in MN is more for the experience/relationships than actually killing deer. Venesion is a bonus to the trip.

PJ

[B. Amish]

1 bottle of Jagermeister to pass around on Deer Hunting Eve!

[Beeber]

We usually get together 3 to 4 weeks before opener and mow trails, check stands, add stands in the new hot spots, and take the light out at night and see what is around the property. This annual event happened this past weekend. We decided to take my D7 Cat out and dose some new trails and clean up some others. Unfortunately it has been pretty wet in NE MN this Fall and we planted the D7 in a mud hole. I wish I had a photo to share but I was not in the mood to take one at the time. After two days of tying logs to the tracks and slogging through the thick clay we gave up and called a local contractor to dig it out with his track hoe. Well if nothing else it will make a good story to tell for the next 20 to 30 years. All I can say is I had better see a monster buck on opening weekend which will make the Cat ordeal seem a lot funnier then it does now.

Good luck to everyone on the opener

[echotrail]

We (5) hunt the second week NE of Orr and stay at a resort. Leave TC area by 6 am on the Fri after the opener and usually are there by 11 am. We go to our 1st and 2nd choice hunting areas and prep our ground blinds. Begin hunting on Sat. Sun is 1/2 hunting and football in the afternoon for four of us. The 5th guy says the NFL is just a "Bunch of overpaid criminals". We get serious Mon thru Thurs and home on Fri. I think it's time to start packing now.

[BDR]

Good topic!

I have been thinking about this alot this year. Our hunting will remain the same, but alot of big changes are in store.

For all of my 30 years of deer hunting we have had camp, with cousins and uncle, based at Grandma's house. It is a very short jaunt to our land. Unfortunately she passed on this spring and we have sold her place. I will miss my weekends with her. But I will cherish MANY great memories.

We now will start new rituals. We have made a camp spot on our property and will be using campers and RV's. It will take a couple years to get all the differences down but I am looking forward to some changes.

[hanson]

Deer Camp Rituals, huh?

How about setting up and taking down this camp every year. Next weekend is when it will get put up with a few trips to the woods with gear over the coming week by some relatives.

Nice and comfy. Home to some of my relatives for 2 weeks straight. Unfortunately, I still have to work during the week.

[half2fish]

Lets see,

Im not old enough to drink so obviosly i guess i dont do all of the same things you do but here is my plans, my dad takes me out of school at noon on fri. drive the four houres north past wahkish, set up in the buses, play some cards and go to bed. wake up and get in the stand by 6 sit till noon and eat my lunch and sit till dark. i used to go in for lunch but since lats year i shot my 8 point during what would have been the "lunch break" i sit all day. makes for a long season but sure is worth it.

[fivebucks]

The rituals we have is to go up Thursday morning and have a good time Thurs. night. Friday is last minute stand stuff and then get together with the "old boys", have a big turkey dinner, toast fallen comrades, and talk about past hunts. We have 3 generations so there are some good memories. That's the main ritual. Smaller ones are to get together one day to do some still hunt drives as a 5 man group with us five property owners (hence the name of our deer camp "Five Bucks Lodge"). We usually do this on Tuesday and then people filter out Wed. & Thurs. and I usually stay thru Sunday to hunt the whole season (zone 2). Can't Wait!!!!!!!!!!!

[hanson]

OK, gave it another shot. Scroll up to my previous post to see 'home' for a few weeks out of the year. Sorry about the mess, didn't get to clean up outside before I took the picture.

We typically sleep 5-6 people here. I don't think there is a restaurant in the state that can match the kind of cooking that happens here. Of course the MN Dept of Health might not think too highly of our cooking practices

Deer camp typically entails lots of bacon, eggs, hash browns, pancakes, fresh venison, and POTATOES. Last year our treat was Halibut! Mmmmm.

[fishnutbob]

Hey talk BOB, I notice you have a set of RED NECK wind chimes hanging on your shack by the door, made from empty beer cans, cool thats a collectors item, nice touch.

[ironranger420]

We all (4 uncles, 1 brother, and two cousins) head up on Thursday night and get the "partying" out of our system so that we can go to bed early on Friday. Then on Friday we get repairs done on the shack if need be, and get some bird hunting in. This year we are still doing that but are short 1 man. My dad passed away this Spring from a heart attack at age 53 and will leave a huge void at deer camp. Even so, he was a great man and left a bunch of great memories for all of us to share. He was also camp cook, but had been "training" one of my uncle's to take over for him when he was gone. Well, he left too early but thankfully had trained his replacement well. Although my Uncle doesn't think he's ready for the task, we know he'll do fine. This year we are going to start a "wall of fame" in my dad's honor. His lucky hunting shirt along with some pictures will go up on the wall so that his spirit is there with us. It will be a difficult year, but it will be great to be around all of his brother's (my uncles) and tell funny stories about the guy. I don't think anything can bring a family together better than deer camp. I'm looking forward to deer hunting like you wouldn't believe, but at the same time I'm not. We'll see if dad sends that 30 pointer my way this year.

[BuckslayerBob]

Brought a tear to my eye, ironranger. Sorry about your loss. I may be going through something similar soon with my Dad(57 and the head of our deer camp and camp cook), so I understand what you are going through. It has to be pretty tough. Deer hunting without him just won't be the same.

I've seen a lot of similarities in this thread with our deer camp. Some are new traditions, some are old. Most of us in our camp also try to make it up on Thursday to get the partying and over excitement of being at deer camp out of our system so Saturday morning isn't a rough one. We also hunt NE of Orr. We salute and pay tribute to our departed deer camp members. Sometimes we bring the photo albums up and have a good laugh and tell stories. We do shots of Jagermeister after the hunt for everyone who bagged a deer. We also believe deer camp is all about the camaraderie of family and friends and that getting a deer is a bonus.

We have huge dice and card games. Smear is the camp favorite. Five bucks a game, buck a set. We used to go one of the local resorts and get in on the smear tournaments that started the second weekend of deer camp. They sold the place and disbanded the tournaments, but ever since then, we've been hooked. Hi, low, jick, jack, game! And maybe joker, joker, too! But I bought a new 11.5 gram poker chip set at costco for 60 bucks, so of course we'll be playing some texas hold'em this year, too. Probably five or ten dollar tournaments. Should be fun! (Except if you're one of the first to go out. Then it's not very fun!)

But I'd have to say the most fun we've ever had at the table of the shack would be a dice game called Forward, Backward, In the Middle. We all start with three one dollar bills(used to be quarters). You shake as many dice as you have bills, up to three dice maximum. If you have no bills, you can't shake, but that doesn't mean you are out of the game. For every six you shake, you pass a bill forward to the left. For every five you shake, you pass a bill backward to the right. For every four you shake, you put a bill in the middle. When most of the bills have went in the middle and only one guy has bills, he shakes and tries to roll clear. If he does, he takes the pot. With nine or ten guys, we have had so much fun with this game. Everybody yelling and screaming when the pot doubles or triples because the last guy rolled a four and had to put his last bill in the middle. Oh man! I can't wait!

We also have a CD I made out of a vinyl album by a gal out of Duluth named Dottie Lou that an old friend that used to own our shack used to always play over and over and over, blasting it on his old record player console so everyone could hear. It reminded him of his wife that had passed away. We got the record from his son when he passed away in '87 and we have listened to it every year at deer camp. It reminds us all of the good old times we've had at the shack. Everyone used to hate that music when he'd play it. "Little arrows in your clothing, little arrows in your hair. When you're in love you'll find those little arrows everywhere..." But now everyone loves it. Good times and good memories. Sometimes I wonder if other camps are like this at all.

I also made an official sign for our deer camp out of a piece of oak sandwiched between 2 pieces of laser cut steel with a beautiful deer head etched in the bottom of the sign on each side. I presented it to my Dad last year and I'm glad I had the chance to do that. We call our shack the (our last name)Wilderness Casino, Lodge & Pub(I would have preferred Tavern instead of Pub, but it wouldn't fit).

Then there are the pranks. Hmmm, where will the rubber spider go this year? Let's see. They're already expecting it to be tied to fishing line and to the inside of one of the cupboard doors where the coffee cups are. Hmmm. Maybe under the toilet seat?

Deer camp is such a magical time and place that words almost can't describe it.

And fishnutbrotherbob, the redneck wind chimes are doing well. A little tangled, but they're still there!

[hanson]

Smear!!

Somebody knows what smear is! Awesome! Ever since I graduated high school, I haven't run into someone who knew how to play smear! My parents played smear and held card parties where smear was the only game played. Typically 4-5 tables were going and a lot of beverages. All of my high school friends played smear. But ever since I've left NW Minnesota, nobody knows what that game is.

Yep- High, Low, Jick, Jack, Game. We dealt 9 cards, bid, discarded, and re-dealt so everyone ended up with 6.

Shoot the Moon!

[fivebucks]

I know the game smear. I played it many times with friends from the Grand Rapids area on fishing trips. Our deer camp card game is Buckuecker. Nines and up, trump game etc.

[ironranger420]

Smear is a great game, but our camp takes it a little further. We play "Bridge Smear". It's a game that isn't taught much anymore, and is rarely even heard of. It's just like Smear, except all cards 2-5 are removed from the deck. That makes 6 low, and Ace is still high. There are only 4 points, high, low, jack, game. You are also allowed to tell your partner what suit you're bidding on, for example: 1 club, pass, 2 clubs, 2hearts, pass, slam hearts, grand slam clubs, pass, pass, pass, .......your hand! Our deer camp plays for $0.50/game and $0.25 per set. Not much money, but I've had games payout around $4 before. A lot of drinking and thinking you can get 4 points with a bare Jack.

From what I've been told, in the fifties and sixties, the Elk's Club in Virginia used to hold Bridge Smear tournaments. So yes, it is a real game, and can get very heated!

[Bushwacker]

Our deercamp is Bushwacker- The namesake of my username. My grandpa named it about 30 years ago and he passed on(actually while he was out bow hunting) three years ago so we have a duty to carry on the Bushwacker tradition. Like a few others, our crew has to go up on Thursday to try to get some of the partying out of our system. That usually doesn't work because a couple of guys will trickle in on Friday and they are ready to party so we have to do it all again. And that usually means trying to squish a whole night of partying in by 10:00 so we can get up and hunt the next day. Usually a few headaches that morning. We hunt hard once the season opens. In the stand at least an hour before sunrise and we usually meet up to drag out the deer at 11:00 and then back in the stands by 1:00 for the night hunt. The same thing goes on Sunday. A lot of stand time. Then we start packing it up after a morning hunt on Monday and head home. One of the best parts of deer hunting is the next weekend when we all get together to butcher our deer. That usually involves stories from the Thursday and Friday before

[bigbucks]

I'd say this thread shows how different hunting can be for each group. We hunt hard all day for two days, many of us both weekends (zone 4). We eat sandwiches & candy bars & talk around the trucks between drives. When it's dark we hang up the deer, talk a little more, & go home to eat & sleep. There's never any alcohol involved in our hunting & we don't stay up late playing games either. Quite frankly, we're too beat to stay awake much past 8-9pm during season. I'm not saying that makes us better hunters or anything, maybe safer, but it's just such a contrast to what a lot of camps sound like.

I love the comaradarie of the hunt for sure, but I'm going to be disappointed if we don't shoot several deer each year. It will still be fun, just not as satisfying, I'm not saying I have to get one, although I usually will. Most of us look forward to the hunt itself more than the social parts of it. Maybe not by a lot.

[Blaze]

I think my uncle named our deer camp...not sure who had the sign made, but here it is hanging proudly on the front of the cabin...

[MikeYager - Suzuki]

My opener deer camp consists of 6 adults (3 wives) 2 small children and 3 dogs packed into my inlaws small home. Kinda lame. On the upside we hunt right out back but the woods is small and really only good on opener morning. We almost always get deer and limit about 1 of 3 years. Sunday and Monday spent butchering deer. The wives get to wrap. My wife hates that part but hey it's deer camp. I dragged my wife out of bed to help me drag a buck ONCE. I think the part where I had her hold up a leg while I gutted it turned her off! haha. Since it is family this will be my deer camp until it is no longer available. Second weekend I get to go with the guys and that is definitely fun. We stay in an old family farmstead and have a magnificent piece of land to hunt.